Here are the lyrics of "My Back Pages", released in 1964, a year the height of Dylan's "protest song" period in 1963. His message is obvious: "I was naive and simplistic. I thought I could change the world with a handful of angry songs. I'm not doing that anymore, no matter how much you people want me to. I'm not writing that stuff anymore to meet your requirements or expectations. I am gonna change myself instead, from the inside out."

My Back Pages

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Copyright © 1964; renewed 1992 Special Rider Music


For people to hear the original recordings of those protest songs and imagine that he didn't mean them at the time is to indicate that those people are either partially deaf or entirely cynical. He was performing probably 200 or more times a year, and sang those songs hundreds of times. In doing so, he moved through the feelings that brought forth those songs. He processed those feelings rapidly, and reached a point where his viewpoint on them shifted to a new viewpoint. Then he had new things to say. That's what happens when a person is open to change. You process stuff till you fully understand your place in it fully, and then you move on, unless you're too rigid a personality to be willing to ever change.

As regards the Victoria's Secret ad...or any such ad...I fully understand why people would have objections to such ads and would feel that they objectify and trivialize women. No problem.

- LH